


The Calm after Wildfire

by twinyards



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: i hate myself im so sorry goodbye, sam cortland narrating his death, so sorry to all of you who are about to read our babys death, what depresses a fandom more than the words 'sam cortland'?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 10:45:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13545720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinyards/pseuds/twinyards
Summary: Sam Cortland knew he was going to die long before Rourke Farran had made the first cut.Some part of him had known this would be his fate. No one went after Farran and lived to tell about it. Actually, no one was stupid enough to go after Farran at all. But Sam had been growing more and more reckless for some months now.





	The Calm after Wildfire

**Author's Note:**

> Before anyone screams at me, just know this was as painful for me to write as it's going to be for you to read. That being said, please grab some tissues and suffer with me.

Sam Cortland knew he was going to die long before Rourke Farran had made the first cut. 

Some part of him had known this would be his fate. No one went after Farran and lived to tell about it. Actually, no one was stupid enough to go after Farran at all. But Sam had been growing more and more reckless for some months now. 

Sam had spent the better part of his existence doing little other than following orders and harboring secret dreams. Over the years he’d shared precious little of those close kept desires, the fanciful notions that didn’t belong to boys who didn’t even belong to themselves. Wesley and Lysandra, for so many years, were the only people he’d ever told those secrets too. They were his confidants. His only friends. His small band of dreamers born into a cold, hateful world. 

They had been his one solace for so long, and yet they were just as trapped as he was.

Or just as trapped as he had been.

Sam’s freedom did not weigh lightly on his shoulders. For free was not free when your oppressor was still a stone’s throw away. Not when you held your breath turning a corner, waiting for someone to throw a knife into your back with every footfall you took toward home. 

So yes, some part of him had known there was a good chance he would die tonight. And it had not stopped him from taking the risk. 

Because for the first time in his life, he had someone out there that was worth risking his life for.

He’d known the knife was poisoned with gloriella the moment it had left a long, shallow trough across his chest. Farran easily could have made it a fatal blow. Sam should have been dead then. But Rourke Farran liked to take his time.

Sam wasn’t even surprised when they drug his frozen body back to the Keep. Of course Arobynn would want his possession returned, albeit unusable anymore. Arobynn was a bastard, and revenge was his favorite pastime. Sam had taken something the King of Assassins desired more than anything else, and that in itself was an unforgivable act.

Sam wasn’t surprised when the King of Assassins himself strode into the cold stone walls of the dungeons. Arobynn said nothing, because he didn’t need to. The two men only shared a look, Arobynn’s saying  _ you shouldn’t have taken what didn’t belong to you _ , and Sam’s returning with  _ I wouldn’t take it back _ . 

With a flare of his nostrils and curt nod to the butcher he’d hired to do his dirty work, Arobynn had left Sam to die. And Sam hadn’t been stupid enough to believe he’d go quickly.

He didn’t know how many hours had passed. There wasn’t a single piece of his body, not one thread of his consciousness that wasn’t screaming and writhing in agony. If one could even call it screaming, anymore. The sound erupting from within his throat was cracked and broken, barely a breath after so many hours. Sam had seen this kind of torture inflicted before, had witnessed nearly every brutal cut and punch and pulling of teeth, but he’d still screamed when Farran went for his eye. He could still feel it, dangling from the socket, waiting to be ripped away with one more powerful punch across Sam’s jaw. 

But underneath the pain, underneath the blood and the gore and the knowing he likely only had moments left, there was a strange contentment inside him. Deep inside, in the most protected part of his soul, was an image of a golden haired girl with a wildfire in her eyes; a wildfire that cooled only for him.

Sam had long wondered when his time would come. How old he would be. If he would be old and withered, as he dreamed he’d be, or if he’d be young and scared and unfinished, as he was now. Being an assassin for Arobynn’s Guild had always meant he was likely to die young and violently, but he’d dreamed of another life anyway. One where he wasn’t a dead courtesan's son. One where he didn’t owe every fiber of cloth on his back to the King of Assassins. One where he lived to be old and gray, with grandkids clinging to his hips and a wrinkled wife sharing his bed. 

He’d dreamed of a life where he’d lived and loved.

With every breathe Sam took, he’d loved Celaena. For years and years. And after all that quiet love, that fierce ache in his bones telling him he would never deserve her, she had loved him back. 

The knowledge steeled his nerves, despite his screams. Farran was still mocking him, still whispering Arobynn’s promises of torture and pain (which were pointless, because they’d been plucking out his fingernails and peeling the skin away from his flesh for more than four hours) for stealing Celaena away. Sam stopped listening, even to the sound of his own rapsing attempts at screams, a few grateful tears slipping down his face. 

Grateful didn’t even begin to cover it, but Sam had never been very remarkable with words. He didn’t gobble down books with Celaena’s voracity. He was smart, but being overly articulate had never been high on his priority list. But now he wished he was. Because Sam wanted to be able to express the weight that lifted his shoulders knowing he’d die having known true happiness. 

Every scrambling moment in Skull’s Bay, every stolen kiss outside the Keep, every night spent with Celaena’s body pressed against his, the softness of her face while she slept… They were the happiest memories of his life. She’d loved him she’d loved him  _ she loved him _ . And somehow, even though he was going to die, even though he’d never see her wide, wild grin again, even though he’d never watch her fret over the perfect seasonal soaps again, even though she was probably out there, looking for him right now, scared out of her mind, Sam was okay with dying  _ because  _ she loved him.

He’d wanted one great love affair in his life. Just one. Sam had never dared to dream that it would be his childhood crush, that he’d get to kiss the girl he’d watched and wanted after for years. He’d never thought she would love him back. He never thought Celaena Sardothien would choose him. But she had. And knowing that, having the knowledge that even after he was gone, she would still love him, made the inevitable bearable. 

Sam had tamed a wildfire, had coaxed it into tender kisses and a warm blush, and now he would experience the calm of  _ after _ . It did not matter that his own light was burning out. For somewhere out in the night, wandering streets they’d laughed and danced and kissed in, the wildfire still burned.

Even content to die, he still feared the pain. Farran was an expert, and he’d spent a lifetime honing in on skills to keep a man alive while inflicting unbearable atrocities. So when he turned to grab a new blade, Sam grit his teeth against a groan of fear, and thought of turquoise eyes swimming in gold, and murmured to himself,

“My name is Sam Cortland, and I will not be afraid.”

He murmured the words over and over, never letting Celaena’s image leave his mind, until his heart went still and he could pass into oblivion, knowing that while he had lived, his greatest prayer had been answered. 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you guys all enjoyed this little drabble of sorts!   
> I'm @beckcobalt on tumblr if you ever want to request a scene, or just yell with me about my sweet son Sam.   
> Thank you all so much for reading <3


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